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anyone try this frame?

OK so I have a couple frames that are pretty big and heavy for my 16' cat. I was thinking about a frame that put the tubes about 2 feet apart. it seems to me that the frame would end up half as heavy as a standard and the mauverability should go up. I would like to set the rig up to mimic a pro pioneer in size, I know the pro has the floor to help floatation but the lion tubes are decent floaters. so has anyone tried it and what are the results? I also like the idea of the modular rails nrs has, you could cater the width to the river you were on.

Been there done that all sorts of ways, means and/or justifications (works just fine)... however w/ Lion tubes the issue IS tube diameter! It'll be quite a reach with paddles. The angle of attack using oars will be inefficiently steep to the water-line. Another problem is no rocker w/ 16 foot length Lion tubes & no real width/stance =ing poor handling + poor recovery + poor stability. That all generally adds up to not worth doing.

frame

I tried with a narrow frame on my 16' lion tubes (don't remember how close the tubes were, pretty close to 2' though), but found I lost a LOT of mauverability. I used my 10' oars and they proved to be a little long for the job, but if you did like the frame that size NRS sells shorter oars. As a side note I really don't think using the 10' oars contributed to the lack of manuverability that much.

ahhh

Originally Posted by Brian Richardson

Been there done that all sorts of ways, means and/or justifications (works just fine)... however w/ Lion tubes the issue IS tube diameter! It'll be quite a reach with paddles. The angle of attack using oars will be inefficiently steep to the water-line. Another problem is no rocker w/ 16 foot length Lion tubes & no real width/stance =ing poor handling + poor recovery + poor stability. That all generally adds up to not worth doing.

sorry reread Mr. Richardson's post and I see what he's saying too, with the 10' oars my angle of attack on the water was the same as with my wider frame (although with the narrow frame I overlapped the handles to help narrow the distance between the blades, which was a pain rowing). But to narrow the raft that much and with much smaller oars the oars would be straight up and down in the water, making them much more inefficient. Good point, and one I never thought about. I've changed my frame several times now but always used the same oars.

Narrow Frames on Catarafts

Many years ago I participated in creating a narrow frame for Jay Massey's operation over on the Moose John river. He wanted something that would get through skinny spots easier than a full-width cataraft. He was running the old Panther, a 15' double-tube boat. Later, when I had my Leopard frame built, I had the shop cut all of the cross-bars and create an 18-inch section on each of them that could be removed, to make the frame narrower. It works, but there is a key point you must keep in mind; stability.

The standard-width cat is a very stable boat, but if you make it too narrow, you can really end up in trouble if you broach on an obstacle in moving water. In other words, it's easier to flip over if it's too narrow. I would really think this over to make sure you have to have it.

A couple of other points to consider; the oar length has been discussed already. I would purchase extensions on your oars to make them usable in the normal configuration, and remove the extensions for the narrow configuration.

Finally, remember that you will lose a lot of payload space with the narrow configuration. Naturally the capacity will be the same, but you won't have as much room to spread out.

As to the Leopard frame I had built? I thought it was a good idea at the time, but after floating many hundreds of miles with it, I have never, ever had the need to use that feature.